5,300-Year-Old Skull Offers Earliest Known Evidence of Ear Surgery

[Judi Lynn]

Bone growth suggests the patient survived the procedure, which was likely conducted to treat an infection

Jane Recker

February 24, 2022

Some 5,300 years ago, humans in what is now northern Spain cut into an elderly woman’s skull, likely in an effort to relieve her ear pain. Now, reports Judith Sudilovsky for the Jerusalem Post, archaeologists say the woman’s skull represents the earliest known evidence of ear surgery.

Published in the journal Scientific Reports, the study centers on a skull discovered in 2018 among the remains of around 100 people in a large, single-chamber tomb called the Dolmen of El Pendón. The tomb—made up of two upright stones supporting a flat, horizontal stone—is located in Reinoso, a town in the Spanish province of Burgos, and remained in use between roughly 3800 and 3000 B.C.E., notes Vishwam Sankaran for the Independent.

The woman’s skull shows evidence of two separate procedures. As the study notes, the first was conducted on the right ear, perhaps to treat an infection or problem “sufficiently alarming to require an intervention.” The second, which could have taken place “back-to-back or several months, or even years” later, targeted the left ear. Bone growth around the perforations indicate the woman survived both surgeries by at least a month, reports the Agencia de Noticias para la Difusión de la Ciencia y la Tecnología (DiCYT).

According to the Independent, the placement of the cuts suggests the patient had a mastoidectomy—surgery undertaken to treat an infection of the mastoid bones, which are located just behind each ear. (These bones help regulate ear pressure and protect the delicate structures of the ear.) If left untreated, the infection could have spread to the air pockets of the mastoid bones, filling them with infected material and creating potentially life-threatening conditions like meningitis or blood clots.

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/5300-year-old-skull-offers-earliest-known-evidence-of-ear-surgery-180979636/

[Judi Lynn]

1. This 5,300-year-old skull shows evidence of the earliest known ear surgery

Archaeologists also found a flint blade that may have been used as a cauterizing tool.

JENNIFER OUELLETTE - 2/24/2022, 5:49 PM

Archaeologists have excavated a 5,300-year-old skull from a Spanish tomb and determined that seven cut marks near the left ear canal are strong evidence of a primitive surgical procedure to treat a middle ear infection. That makes this the earliest known example of ear surgery yet found, according to the authors of a recent paper published in the journal Scientific Reports. The Spanish team also identified a flint blade that may have been used as a cauterizing tool.

The excavation site is located in the Dolmen of El Pendón in Burgos, Spain, and consists of the remains of a megalithic monument dating back to the 4th century BCE, i.e., the late Neolithic period. The ruins include an ossuary holding the bones of nearly 100 people, and archaeologists have been excavating those remains since 2016.

In July 2018, the team recovered the skull that is the subject of this latest study. The skull was lying on its right side, facing the entrance of the burial chamber, and while most of the cranium was intact, no teeth remained. The missing teeth, plus the loss in bone density and fully ossified thyroid cartilage, indicated that this was the skull of an elderly woman aged 65 or older.

Evidence of perforations were found on both sides of the skull near the mastoid bones (located just behind the ear). The authors suggested that these perforations were the result of two surgical interventions, one on each ear, by someone with rudimentary anatomical knowledge. There was more bone remodeling on the right ear, indicting that the first surgery was performed to treat what was likely a life-threatening condition, given the risks associated with such a procedure during this period.

More:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/02/this-5300-year-old-skull-shows-evidence-of-the-earliest-known-ear-surgery/

[Thunderbeast]

2. I had the same surgery for Menieres.